


Hang the Moon

by ShowMeAHero



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Chopped, Competition, Cooking, First Kiss, First Meetings, Fluff, M/M, Meet-Cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-26
Updated: 2016-09-26
Packaged: 2018-08-17 09:40:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8139388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShowMeAHero/pseuds/ShowMeAHero
Summary: Jack has no idea how he ever ended up in these situations. George just comes up to him with with all these ideas and he usually gets too confused by whatever words she spits at him a hundred miles an hour to say no. So he always finds himself in the strangest places - for example, today, he is on the set of a cooking show. The logo on his chef’s coat says Chopped. The contestant next to him is at least half a foot shorter than Jack, as well as blonde, brown-eyed, smiling, and wringing his hands. Jack does not blush, but this guy is so handsome. Shit.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Just kick my ass from here to the moon, please.

Jack has no idea how he ever ended up in these situations. George just comes up to him with with all these ideas and he usually gets too confused by whatever words she spits at him a hundred miles an hour to say no. So he always finds himself in the strangest places - for example, today, he is on the set of a cooking show. The logo on his chef’s coat says Chopped. He supposes he is on Chopped, then. He sees three people at a table; he’s guessing they will be the people who judge his food. Ergo, the judges. There’s a guy next to them - must be the host. He’s also got three fellow contestants alongside him; it’s part of a series, celebrities versus professional cooks. Jack’s one of the celebrities, and there’s also a blonde television actress he vaguely recognizes as being funny, but couldn’t remember the name of, and a balding white man with glasses who’s grinning a lot who must be a chef.

The last contestant is next to him, and he’s at least half a foot shorter than Jack. He’s blonde, brown-eyed, smiling, wringing his hands. He must be the other chef, but he doesn’t look at all familiar. He must feel Jack’s eyes on him, because he glances up at him and doesn’t seem startled to make eye contact with him. He does, however, stick a hand out for Jack to shake, and shake Jack does.

“Hi, there, honey,” the short chef greets him, and Jack does not blush, but this guy is  _ so _ handsome. Shit. “My name’s Eric Bittle, but y’all can call me Bitty, that’s what my friends call me. What’s your name?”

“Jack Zimmermann,” Jack says. “Pleasure.”

“Oh, you’re the one who plays hockey, ain’t you? Well, aren’t you just so handsome,” Bitty gushes, and Jack stares into his eyes in disbelief. It seems like all this man’s thoughts are just pouring out of his mouth. “You need anything, you just ask me. What charity are you playing for, sweetheart?”

“Oh, uhm, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention,” Jack says. “How about you?”

“The Trevor Project,” Bitty tells him, cheeks coloring. “They give crisis intervention and suicide prevention services for queer youth. I think they’re so important, they just-” he’s gushing still, but then the stage manager swept over and started organizing them. Bitty finally pulls his hand away from Jack, smiling all the while. Jack only looks away when the stage manager demands his attention to explain what they were about to do. Jack half-pays attention, half-watches Bitty paying attention. When they’re finally cut loose to start filming, and the host introduces himself as Ted Allen, apparently, and talks about what they’ll be doing. Jack watches Bitty with fascination, only looking away when he’s supposed to open up the picnic basket in front of him. Inside, there’s oven fries, zucchini pasta, maize, and lamb, and he stares blankly at the food in front of him while Bitty whips into action. Jack spends another few moments staring at the food before he just decides to make little lamb pieces and small sides for the appetizers.

Cooking isn’t easy, Jack knows that, but he’s also been living alone long enough that he knows how to cook for himself, and starting to bread the lamb in the crumbled fries isn’t all that difficult. He makes the maize and pasta bits into a little side dish and does his best to make sure everything is seasoned and edible. Bitty is making a complicated-looking dish next to him, but all the pieces are already starting to look beautiful. Jack saves his lamb from burning, plates his food with a few seconds left to go (a timer is something he’s used to, and he’s great with working in time crunches), and watches Bitty shoot back and forth between the oven and his plates. He abandons his dishes to dart into the pantry with only seconds left, and he reappears with some garnish. He arranges them on his plates, finishing up just as the timer runs out, and Bitty grins, satisfied and proud and flushed with energy. He looks excitedly up at Jack, and Jack extends a fist to him. Bitty fist-bumps him with enthusiasm, looking like he might vibrate out of his skin.

They have to preserve their food for a bit while everything is cleaned up and they get arranged to be judged. They stand in front of the judges - who get introduced as Alex, Geoffrey, and Maneet, and Jack met them all before the filming even started - and wait for their turns.

Bitty, of course, gets a one-hundred-and-ten-percent-positive judgment. Every judge loves the dish he made that Jack can’t even pronounce the name of. Bitty glows with pride and happiness. Jack gets critiqued, but they seem to enjoy it enough, which is all Jack can ask for, really. The judgment goes pretty smoothly, and soon they’re asked to wait in the back.

“So, Jack,” Bitty begins, once they’re seated with the television star, the wild-eyed chef, and the camera crew. “How’s… hockey?”

“Hockey’s good,” Jack says, smiling a little. “You know. Ice, sticks, pucks. That sort of thing. It keeps me busy.”

“Well, it certainly sounds it, with all those sticks,” Bitty replies, grinning. He puts his chin in his hand, elbow on the table, and smiles at Jack. “Who do you play for?”

“The Providence Falconers,” Jack tells him. “Blue and white. They’re a good group of guys.”

“I can imagine,” Bitty says, and they spend the rest of the forty-five minutes they have to wait shooting the shit. Well, it starts that way - about halfway through, it starts to evolve, Bitty asking a bit more personal question, Jack giving more personal answers, then asking probing questions himself. He’s busy making Bitty blush when they’re asked to come back and be judged. By some miracle, he gets to stay, and Bitty, and the balding judge. The blonde actress - who Jack just learned is named Kate - is cut, but she makes a funny joke and winks at Alex the Judge and is ushered away.

The next round is, of course, the entree round, and they have to reset and open the new baskets. Bitty wishes him luck, squeezing his hand under the tables briefly before they open the picnic baskets. This time, they’ve got onion rings, applesauce, cactus fruit, and elk meat. Again, Jack stares at his ingredients, and Bitty’s already in motion, moving so fast he’s blurring in Jack’s peripheral vision. Jack hesitantly starts making a sauce out of the applesauces and the cactus fruit, crushes the onion rings for a breading for his elk meat, and does another meat dish like his last one. If it ain’t broke, he figures, don’t fix it.

Bitty is, of course, flitting between the pantry, his oven, his plates, and Jack’s line of sight, which he smiles every time he’s in. Jack’s hands stutter on his food, and he almost cuts his thumb off when Bitty flushes a pretty pink. Someone calls out to him to pay attention, and he tries to focus on his food. He focuses well enough that he doesn’t cut off a thumb, but Bitty is still attractive enough to deserve a good chunk of his attention. Jack produces a suitable dish before the end of the time they’ve been given, and he takes his time to watch Bitty finish up. He looks confused for a minute, then frantic.

“What do you need?” Jack asks as Bitty’s scooping out a sauce and doling it onto the plates. Bitty looks up at him, brow furrowed.

“Red pepper flakes,” Bitty tells him, and Jack is off like a shot to the pantry. He finds the red pepper flakes among the other spices, and he’s back at Bitty’s side as fast as he can be. He opens up the jar for Bitty, and Bitty scoops it out, sprinkling it onto his meatball-looking things while Jack holds the jar and keeps an eye on the time.

“Four seconds,” Jack tells him, and Bitty applies the last of the red pepper flakes, adds a sprig of parsley to each dish, and backs up, hands in the air, just as Host Ted Allen tells them to stop working. Bitty looks up at Jack with such gratitude and relief that Jack wants to hug him.  _ Fucking simmer down, Zimmermann, you voleur, knock it off _ .

“We did it, Jack,” Bitty says breathlessly, and he actually  _ does _ hug Jack, and Jack wants to die, a little bit. His heart starts pounding. He puts the jar of red pepper flakes down on his station, catching Bitty’s weight against him, and hugs him back. When they’re being judged on their dishes, he’s asked why he helped Bitty. He shrugs.

“He needed help,” Jack answers. “He’s working for a charity, same as I am. His is a lot like mine, actually. And he needed help. We’re on the same team here.”

“And you’re nothing if not a team player?” Host Ted Allen jokes, and Bitty beams up at him like he hung the moon. Jack thinks, if anyone is hanging the moon around here, it’s Eric Bittle.

“That’s right, he is,” Bitty answers for him, and Jack can feel his face get hot. Bitty’s dish gets praised, as does Jack’s, as does the other chef, who appears to be named Alton and grins a lot. Jack hopes he gets to go to the next round, because he wants to spend the little time they have left here with Bitty, who is  _ definitely  _ making it to the next round.

This time, when they’re waiting in the back room, Bitty starts thanking him profusely, talking about what a good sport he is, talking about everything that went through his head throughout the whole round, and he mentions thanking Jack by taking him out to dinner. Jack’s brain kind of screeches to a halt at that.

“What?” Jack asks, and Bitty screeches to a halt, as well, mouth moving like a fish out of water. He snaps his jaw shut and looks up at Jack.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t’ve assumed anything, it’s just to thank you-” Bitty starts saying, but Jack shakes his head.

“I wouldn’t mind getting dinner or something, Bittle,” Jack assures him, and Bitty visibly relaxes, shoulders losing tension and coming down from around his ears.

“Then it’s a date… no, not a  _ date _ , I’m  _ so  _ sorry,” Bitty says, satisfied, and Jack smiles at him, and Bitty quickly changes the topic. They keep talking for the rest of the time, delving deeper and deeper with each conversation topic. Bitty almost has his hand over Jack’s on the table and Alton the Chef Guy is on his phone, texting someone rapidly, when they’re called back to the main stage.

By some miracle, Alton the Chef Guy is the next one to leave, because he forgot a basket ingredient, and it’s Jack and Bitty in the last round. Chef Guy Alton leaves graciously, tipping an imaginary hat to them before he abandons them, and Jack and Bitty are set up for the last round.

“I’m a pastry chef and a baker,” Bitty whispers to him. Jack knows; Bitty told him two hours ago. “Tell me if you want help.”

“Tell me if I can help you at all,” Jack says softly back to him. Bitty reaches out and squeezes Jack’s hand again, and Jack is starting to get a little superstitious about that hand squeeze. When his teammates see this episode, they’re not going to see good PR, like Georgia said; they’re just going to see Jack acting like a sixteen-year-old idiot with a crush on national television. Jack is inwardly cringing over all the torment he knows he’s going to get after this airs.

Their baskets have glazed doughnuts, lemon extract, red velvet cake rolls, and waffles in them, and he and Bitty both spend a second looking at the ingredients. This time, Jack moves first, but Bitty rockets off right after, shooting into the pantry and returning with armfuls of ingredients. He starts making a pie crust by hand, and Jack is so far beyond impressed he’s essentially on another planet. He starts making some sort of bread pudding thing, but it turns out he has nowhere near enough time to finish a bread pudding. Bitty turns up with a phenomenal pie, and helps Jack plate his doughy bread puddings in the last seconds of the round. Bitty looks proud of himself and of Jack when the time runs out, but Jack’s mostly proud of Bitty and his phenomenal mini-pies.

They’re judged, and not much good is said about Jack’s bread pudding. The judges are already halfway in love with Bitty, though, and they have nothing but good things to say about his pies. Jack’s glad Bitty’s probably going to win; the guy deserves it, he does this for a living, and all Jack does is play hockey. Bitty is positively  _ glowing _ in the back room while they wait for their final judgment. He starts to plan what he wants to do if he wins -  _ if _ , he keeps saying, as though Jack even stands a chance at winning this - and everything he wants to do to help the Trevor Project with the money.

“It’s all going so well, Jack,” Bitty says happily, and Jack can’t help but agree wholeheartedly. They’re called back in before very long after all (Jack guesses it didn’t take them long to decide on Bitty), and, of course, they call Eric Bittle the winner. Bitty jumps up and hugs Jack tightly. They usher them both in separate directions, and Jack doesn’t see Bitty again before he’s told that he can leave a while later, after he’s filmed his talking heads for the show. He looks over the stage manager’s shoulder for Bitty, but doesn’t see him.

“He’s filming his last talking head,” the stage manager tells him. “Don’t worry, you can leave. Thanks for all your help, we’ll be in touch if we need you in the future, it was a pleasure to have you on Chopped.”

The stage manager says more to him, he thinks, but he picks up his stuff slowly and leaves. He has to dig through his coat pocket for his keys as he trudges across the parking lot, lamenting the fact that he never got Bitty’s phone number - or any contact information except his name, actually. He can hear a car start up somewhere closer to the building and, when he looks up, he can see that Bitty is in the driver’s seat. Jack hesitates for only a moment before he takes off at a run, weaving his way between cars in the maze between his car and Bitty’s.

“Bittle,” he calls, and, luckily, Bitty’s window is down, and he puts the car in park, looking at Jack through the open window with confusion.

“Oh, Jack, hello,” he calls back, and Jack skids to a stop in front of him. Bitty frowns slightly and climbs out of the car. The faint strains of a Beyoncé song filter through the radio in Bitty’s car, and Jack is captivated by Bitty’s flushed face. “Oh, my goodness, Jack, is everything alright? You’re outta breath, are you-”

“Bitty,” Jack says, and he reaches out, hesitant, taking Bitty’s elbows in his hands. He edges closer, Bitty staring up at him with wide eyes, and he inches in and kisses him. Bitty doesn’t move for a long, torturous second, but then, God, he  _ does _ move, climbing closer to Jack, letting Jack’s hands move, one to the small of Bitty’s back, one up to cup his jaw. One of Bitty’s hands rests low on Jack’s chest, the other on his back, and Bitty bows under him, tipping his head up to give Jack better reach.

Jack pulls back, just for a second, to look into Bitty’s face. It’s flushed red, his eyes still shut as he waits for Jack to come back for another kiss, and Jack couldn’t be happier George picked him to do the cooking show PR mess this week. Jack does kiss Bitty again, and again, right next to Bitty’s running car in the parking lot of a television studio. He kisses him until his phone starts insistently buzzing, and Bitty’s car sounds like it’s running out of patience. He backs out of his space, the both of them catching their breath slightly.

“Any chance that dinner could be a date?” Jack asks, and Bitty shoves lightly at his chest.

“Jack Zimmermann, you charmer,” Bitty teases. He hands Jack his phone and takes Jack’s phone from him. Jack follows his lead and puts his phone number in Bitty’s phone. “How about I make you dinner tonight?”

“I have to fly out to Providence in the morning,” Jack says, and Bitty smiles.

“That’s not tonight,” Bitty reminds him. “And I live in Boston.”

“Fantastic,” Jack says, and  _ means  _ it. “Maybe I can help.”

“We’ll see,” Bitty answers, grinning as he hands Jack his phone back, and Jack exchanges it for Bitty’s phone. “I have to make dessert, though. I make a maple-sugar-crusted apple pie I think you’d really like.”

And Jack - Well, Jack just has to kiss him for that, just has to press Bitty up against his car in the nearly-full parking lot. Bitty responds in kind, wrapping his hands up in Jack’s jacket, kissing him back for all he’s worth.

“Then it’s a date,” Jack says to him, and Bitty kisses his nose, then his cheeks, then his chin, then his mouth again.

“Agreed,” Bitty murmurs into his mouth. Jack pulls Bitty close, his phone buzzing in his pocket, Beyoncé filtering through the speakers in Bitty’s car. Bitty tastes a little bit like the lemon and red velvet from their last round, mixed with faint mint. He’s better than a dream, Jack thinks, and, looking down at Bitty’s big brown eyes, his tousled blonde hair, and his happy, red face, wonders if he didn’t win Chopped after all.

**Author's Note:**

> The judges are Alex Guarnaschelli, Geoffrey Zakarian, and Maneet Chauhan, the host is, of course, Ted Allen, and the other contestants are Alton Brown and Kate McKinnon.
> 
> PLEASE kick my ass from here to the moon. It's all I ask.
> 
> You can follow me on Twitter at [@nicoIodeon](https://twitter.com/nicoIodeon) or on Tumblr at [andillwriteyouatragedy](http://andillwriteyouatragedy.tumblr.com/).


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